“Your treat?” His face lit up. “Are you sure?”

I looked at him, flabbergasted. I could feel my muscles convulsing, and I had to swallow the urge to scream from the top of my lungs. I wanted to grab twenty units of Botox and inject them into his face until he looked like the Mahmoud from the photographs. I wanted to print out all our past conversations, all the “good morning, beautiful” texts, shred them into a million pieces, and throw them at his wrinkly face. I wanted to do all these things, but instead, I pulled out my credit card and dropped it into the small black tray. If this was what it would take to get me out of this date, I figured it was a small price to pay.

“Thanks, Leila.” He grinned, quickly stuffing his wallet back into his blazer pocket. “I’ll tell you what. Next time, it’ll be on me.”

His words filled me with detestation. Next time? There will never be a next time. I cringed to myself as we walked out of the restaurant. Every cell of my body recoiled as Mahmoud placed his arm around my shoulder and leaned into me, laughing. “I think this went really well,” he said, his leather-soled loafers flapping against the concrete. I turned and looked away in disgust as the image of my once-again-nameless Mr. Perfect floated farther into the distance.

Mr. Smoky

“Morning,” I mumbled as I staggered into the kitchen the next day.

“Sleep well, beti?” my mother asked, glancing at the green numbers above the stove. It was 10:47. I rubbed my eyes and nodded, taking a seat on the counter stool.

“So,” she said, placing two warm scallion pancakes on my plate next to a bowl of fresh Greek yogurt. “How did it go?”

“What?” I mumbled sleepily as I tore off a piece of flaky pancake and dipped it into the bowl.

“Your dinner? With your friend? Mahmoud.” She turned the stove off and gave me her full attention.

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “He was old.”

“Old? Beti, he is not much older than you.” She clucked her tongue. I ignored her comment and continued eating. “Besides, the bio-data he emailed said he was only twenty-eight.”

“Twenty-eight going on forty,” I muttered under my breath.

“Hm?”

“I don’t know, Ammi. He just seemed older.”

“Older is not so bad.” My mother wiped her hands on the kitchen towel and rolled out another spiral of dough. “Your abba is seven years older than me.”

I rolled my eyes. Just because my mother had married someone seven years older didn’t mean I wanted to.

“What you think you want now, Leila, might not be what you want later in life. I used to think seven years was such a big distance, but now?” She smiled. “I am grateful. When I first married your abba, I was so young. I wasn’t even eighteen years old! For the first couple months, I cried every day. I was so homesick. I wanted to go back and see my mother. I wanted to play with my siblings. I missed my home. But your father was so patient with me. He took care of me. He protected me. He watched over me like a precious piece of glass.”